The Reconstruction
by flowerpicture
Summary: Ste hasn't seen Brendan for four years. But that doesn't mean it's the end.


**AN: A few days later than promised, but here it is: the new story. I wanted to get quite a bit of it written before I started posting, so here's the first little bit to set the scene and tone. Let me know what you think and if you want to see more. :-) This is Ste's POV.**

::: ::: :::

You're dancing, letting it all go. You're free with it and you don't care who's watching, who's judging you. The club's throbbing with the swell of drunken bodies and it's a blur of shadow and muted colours and sweat. You're probably drunk but you can hardly feel the difference; the euphoria of the music and your movements thrum through your veins and your head's light, swimming with a complete lack of thought.

The group of girls dancing beside you are getting a bit overexcited. A hen party by the looks of things—pink sashes and a novelty veil. You try to shuffle away from them a little but the extra room makes them expand further and the one you expect is the bride-to-be attempts an ambitious lunge, arms thrown wide, smacking into your shoulder and sending you staggering.

You're likely to fall—can't get your feet steady quick enough. But on your way down, a pair of hands stop you from behind. Grab you in a firm grip and pull you up against a hard, heaving chest. You take a deep breath, the adrenaline of the almost-fall buzzing through your system, but you only get half a moment to gather your bearings before you freeze.

There's something about the feel of the hands holding you, one on either side of your waist. Something about the rhythm of the breathing pressing against your back. Something—something about the ghost of sensation on the back of your head, as if the person smelled your hair, brushed some part of their face against you.

The club fades around you and you stand there in this person's hold for the longest time, not wanting to break the moment, whatever it is, not wanting to end it and realise you're wrong.

You can hardly breathe with the intensity of it. Because you know these hands on your waist, you know this touch; you can feel him, and you can smell him, and every part of your body is screaming out for him like you're an addict and he's your drug.

You press back against his weight and his chest expands with a sudden sucked-in breath.

This is a dream. This has to be a dream.

But you know it's not. The instant those hands vanish from your waist, the instant the weight of his body moves away from you, reality snaps back like the world's most violent elastic band. Sound and movement explode back into your senses and you're in the club again, back in the real world, in a world where you haven't just been held for the first time in four years by the man who…who…

By _him_.

You turn instinctively, terrified of seeing him but terrified of not. He's not there. Just faceless bodies and indistinct shapes. No one's looking at you; no one cares that you've just had the world ripped out from beneath your feet.

You pretend you're not looking for him over the next hour but you don't stop scanning the crowd. You nip outside a half dozen times with the smokers for no other reason than to watch the street for a sign of him.

He doesn't appear, but you expect nothing less. If he doesn't want to be seen, then you won't see him.

You go home that night half convinced you imagined the whole thing. The other half of you is in agony.

::: ::: :::

You're midway through counting the pound coins when Jenny speaks and interrupts your flow.

"I'll just get this floor mopped, will I?"

You sigh and look up at her. You'll have to start the count again now. "You've been working here a year now and every night you ask me that. You expecting the answer to change?"

She gives you a mock glare. "I hate doing it. Like, hate it."

"Yeah well," you say, and go back to cashing up. You hate counting the money at the end of every day, but she doesn't hear you complaining, does she? Actually she does—no one likes a moan as much as you. But you're the boss so you get the privilege.

She huffs but grabs the mop and bucket anyway, and you smile to yourself while scooping out the fifty pence pieces.

As much as you hate doing it, sometimes you can't believe you get to—count the money and put it in the bank as your own profit. This place was always your dream; when the deli went bust after…after what happened, you didn't think you'd ever have another shot.

But here you are, sole owner of an upmarket bistro café on Chester's high street, profits and reputation lurching from strength to strength without much effort on your part.

Word of mouth: this is the place to go. Somehow, you've ended up a success. No one's more surprised than you.

The sound of a wet mop head smacking against the tiles snaps you out of your reverie and you return to counting the till. Jenny's huff of annoyance makes you look up.

"What?"

"That guy," she grumbles, scrubbing at a stubborn scuff mark on the floor. "Fifth time today I've seen him hanging around out there." She nods towards the window.

You look, but see nothing but darkness and streetlights. "What guy?"

"That guy—oh." She stands straight and leans on the mop, gazing out the window. "He's vanished again. Creep," she adds with a shudder.

The pit of your stomach drops and hollows out. You want to heave and stop breathing but you don't want her to know something's wrong. "What does he look like?" you ask in a voice you struggle to keep steady.

She shrugs and continues mopping, sloshing water around the bucket as she speaks. "Dunno. Tall. Dark hair. Weird moustache—"

You're across the café and out the door before she has time to blink. You scan the street, left and right and ahead, then start marching up the high street at a swift pace, checking every doorway and alley, desperate, desperate—

By the time you return to the café, dejected and tired and cold, Jenny has finished mopping and has continued where you left off with the cashing up.

"The hell was that about?" she asks him, pouring ten pence pieces into a money bag. "Do you know the guy or something?"

You swallow and watch her, try to get your mind in order and your body warm. She looks up at you expectedly and you say, "No. I don't know him."

Not anymore.

::: ::: :::

It only takes you twenty minutes to get to Hollyoaks and it's a wonder you avoid colliding with any other vehicle on your way. You can barely see straight, mind buzzing with anger and frustration and another emotion, a deeper emotion, one that leaves you shaking and sick.

You don't bother looking around you once you arrive in the village, park and get out of the car. You have no interest in seeing how things have changed, if you recognise anyone, if anyone recognises you. It's late, too late for any kind of confrontation, friendly or otherwise.

You still have a key to Cheryl's place somewhere on your keychain but you don't use it, even if you once called this place home. You knock and you wait and you shiver a little in the crisp air and you deliberately think of nothing except whether or not Cheryl still even lives here.

She does, and her face is a picture of surprise when she opens the door.

"Ste—"

You don't give her the opportunity to continue. "He's back, in't he?" you say, words coming out numb but with an edge of accusation. She opens her mouth to respond but doesn't utter a word and you add, "Don't lie to me, Cheryl."

"Ste, listen—" She steps outside and pulls the door shut behind her, keeps her voice low when she speaks again. For a moment you wonder who's inside, who she's trying to shield from this conversation, and your heart skips a beat when you realise it's probably _him_. "You're not supposed to be here, love," she says gently.

"But I am." You take a deep breath. "I need to see him." You move to push past her into the flat but she stops you, gets in your way and places both hands on your shoulders.

"He's not in there."

"I said don't lie to me!" you snap, and you want to shove her away, knock her down, but a part of you still loves this girl like family and you can't. You deflate instead and lower your head. "I need to tell him something, Cheryl."

"I understand that, love, but he's really not here." She releases your shoulders and wraps her arms around herself, warding off the cold. "I could give him a message maybe?"

You almost laugh at the irony. For nearly a year Cheryl did nothing but give him messages from you. It was completely futile, of course, but it took you a while to accept that.

"No." You scrub a hand through your hair, messing it up, feeling as if the sky and the ground are closing in on you, suffocating you. "I'll—I'll come back."

Her face shows unwanted pity. "Ste, I don't think that's a good—"

She's cut off by the sound of footsteps coming up the steps—slow and uneven, so unlike what you remember that for a moment you're certain it's not him. But then he rounds the corner at the top of the steps and it's all you can do not to collapse at Cheryl's feet.

He has a walking stick in one hand and his keys in the other and his face is so perfect to you that you could cry.

He freezes at the top of the steps and stares. His expression is completely blank; you can't read a thing.

It's with a jolt of white-hot pain in your chest that you realise this is the first time you've laid eyes on him since the day he really did take the bullet for you.

Saved your life in that old warehouse and abandoned you forever.


End file.
